Alien Races

Ekuz: hexapodal, egg-laying omnivores with three eyes and generally triangular heads. A thick mane is common among the females, and the males are generally hairless. Some ekuz factions have formed friendships with other races, even jointly colonizing new worlds with them. Others, including the Zhuzzh Worlds, are sharply xenophobic and totalitarian.

Yeheri: hammer-headed carnivores with long tails. Relative newcomers to the galactic scene, some have started to integrate, though they are generally poor compared to most of the other spacefaring races, and this has led to some resentment among some factions. These have generally become pirates, attacking and stealing where they can, with the justification that the other races had an unfair advantage, so they have to steal and kill to make up for the gap.

The Triamic: The vaguely canine triamic were unique in the galaxy, in that they managed to build one of the largest, and most monolithic, interstellar governments in galactic history.

The M’tait: enigmatic, uncommunicative, and universally hostile. (They appear to consider themselves the only “real” people in the galaxy; everyone else is at the level of animals.) Their point of origin is unknown; no M’tait worlds have ever been identified, in the millenia of galactic civilization. They are the only known race not to have mixed with the interstellar diasporas. One will never find M’tait living as ordinary citizens or subjects on other worlds, or in starship crews. They keep to themselves, speak to no one, make no demands before they attack. Sometimes they take, sometimes they simply destroy. They appear to consider themselves the only sapient race in the galaxy, and everyone else are simply clever animals. Predatory mammals, they look much like a bipedal cross between a lion and a hyena. They often take resources and slaves (livestock), and are known to hunt other sapients for sport. They have never been known to steal technology, as they consider anything animals could develop to be beneath them. To date, after hundreds of years of M’tait wars, no one has been able to determine a pattern or logic to the M’tait’s movements. As the Unity Wars begin, the M’tait are suddenly in possession of even greater levels of technology, in greater numbers, and appear to be growing even more aggressive, if that is possible.

Horgrak: originally from a high-gravity world, male horgrak average 200-250 kilos. They have no visible neck, large eyes, tusks, and big dewclaws on their thick forearms. No one outside of the horgrak themselves has ever seen a horgrak female; there are even theories that there are none, and that the horgrak are in fact sexless. The horgrak females are, however, considerably smaller and more frail than the males, and are kept in fiercely defended creches with the young.

Shsishii: superficially feline, except for a prehensile tail that is often used as a third arm. Essentially the opposite of the horgrak, in that only females are ever seen by outsiders. A few shsishii females have admitted that the males tend to be roaming predators on their homeworlds, disinterested in much besides hunting and fighting. There are a few exceptions, generally kept out of sight by the females.

Sefkhit: resembling nothing so much as horse-sized dragons, the sefkhit have been starfaring perhaps longer than any other extant race. As with any other race, they range from savages on some worlds, totalitarians on others, to some of the most highly civilized, philosophical beings in the galaxy on still others (most notably Uhar-Prahet). (The Cardinal Archbishop of the capitol of Uhar-Prahet is a sefkhit.)

Urgaex: bipedal, wingless pterosaurs. Of a high level of technology, they live in an uncharted and unknown area of the Interarm Deeps known only as the Silent Zone, since no ships that have gone in have ever come out. Their culture is strangely monolithic, centered around bizarre temples on their worlds from which disembodied voices have spoken to them. These voices have led them down dark paths of violence, perversion, and, perhaps, unnatural powers.

Quaavn: otter-like gregarious mammals, whose homeworld was lost in a supernova over a thousand years ago. Having not discovered the Bergenholm at the time, the Quaavn escaped on multigenerational arks, hollowed out of asteroids. Over the centuries, they adapted to the arks, and have declined to settle planets since. They have multiplied, and are constantly building new arks. There are at least a hundred known fleets of Quaavn arks traveling the galaxy, most still at sublight speeds. A few have adapted the Bergenholm field, and have ranged more widely in the name of trade.

Unaufii: blue-to-green-skinned humanoids, with what look like elongated human features and figures. One of the older space-faring races, but coming from a relatively resource-poor cluster, they have not spread as far as some think they should have. The most extreme example of this resentment is on Tothis, where the unaufii minority have managed to slowly brainwash the human colonists that they saved from starvation into worshiping them. Tothis has a Byzantine web of ritual and ceremonial laws regarding interaction between human and unaufii, and to violate any one of them is punishable by death. To further cement their control, the unaufii mandate that the sentence be carried out by a human.

Yeveshai: towering, saurian reptilians (look a bit like iguanodons). Most of the spacefaring yeveshai are quiet, unassuming beings, despite their size (with the usual individual variances in any sapient race). Yeveshai markings are brightly colored, often garish, and unique to each individual (though sometimes subtly).

Tehud: hexapods, like the ekuz, but more resembling Earth’s mythical centaurs. Ungulates, with short, powerful upper bodies, long necks, and bullet heads that taper far back from their necks. Ranging in color from gray to brown, they are nearly completely hairless, except for occasional ridges of fur along their backs, sometimes crawling partway up their necks. They have been starfaring at least as long as the sefkhit, and can be found in many areas of the galaxy. Herbivores, they tend to be gentle people by nature, unless roused by threats to herd and territory.